"In prison, there were no rifles for training, no
stone fortresses from which to shoot. Behind
those walls, our rifles were books. And through
study, stone by stone we built our fortress, the
only one that is invincible: the fortress of
ideas."
- Fidel Castro

I want to say "Happy New Year" to Library Juice readers, especially those
who've been with us since the beginning of 1998 when I started the
publication for students and friends of the SLIS at San Jose State
University.

I am much rewarded for the time and energy I put into editing and
publishing this newsletter, but there are some occassional monetary
expenses for which I'd like to ask your support. These include potential
copyright permissions (so far requests have been granted without a fee
or fees have been too high), expenses for domain registration and expenses
associated with web hosting (I keep these to a bare minimum), some typing,
scanning, and database access expenses to bring you those out-of-copyright
gems, and potential future expenses for things like artwork, more
functionality on the website, commissioned articles, and who knows what else.

If you would like to send money, I usually suggest an annual donation of
ten bucks if you read Library Juice regularly, but feel free to donate
whatever you wish. Details about how to give are at the very end of
the newsletter, along w/ the publication information. (Gifts are not
tax deductible at present.)

Articles include Mitch Freedman's "Now is the Time: Advocating
for Better Salaries & Pay Equity for All Library Workers," an
article by Mary Jo Lynch, director of ALA's Office for Research
and Statistics, about employee benefits, a report on the 2003
Salary Survey, "Networking for Career Success" by Vickie Burger,
"Pay Equity: The Means to Close the Wage Gap," by Michele Leber,
"The Certified Public Library Administrator," by Linda Bostrom,
explaining the plan for ALA-APA's initial certification program,
and some other news about this new association.

Conference of Librarians
Cleveland and Mackinaw
September 1-4 and 8, 1896
Address by the President, John Cotton Dana,
Librarian of the Denver Public Library

[ Editor's comment: We need another ALA President like John Cotton Dana ]

HEAR THE OTHER SIDE

I sometimes fear my enthusiasm for the free public library is born more of
contagion than of conviction. Consider the thing in some of its evident
aspects. You have a building perhaps erected to perpetuate a good man's
memory, a monument and of use only as a monument; or constructed in
accordance with the views of an architect whose ideas of beauty are crude
and whose thought of utility is naught; ill-adapted to the purpose for
which it is intended; poorly lighted; badly ventilated. In it are stored a
few thousand volumes, including, of course, the best books of all time -
which no one reads - and a generous per cent. of fiction of the cheaper
sort. To this place come in good proportion the idle and the lazy. Also
the people who can't endure the burden of a thought, and who fancy they are
improving their minds, while in fact they are simply letting the cool water
of knowledge trickle through the sieve of an idle curiosity. The more
persistent visitors are largely men who either have failed in a career, or
never had a career, or do not wish a career. We all know our own
indolents, our own idlers, our own "boarders." There is little that is
inspiring, per se, in the sight of the men who gather in the newspaper
reading room of any free public library. There is not much that is
encouraging in a careful look at the people who are the more constant
visitors to the shelves of the reference department. Who wear out our
dictionaries, the students of language or the competitors in a
word-building contest? Of those who come to the delivery counter, if our
friends tell the truth, 60 to 80 per cent. rarely concern themselves, as
far as the library knows them, with anything outside of fiction, and in
that field concern themselves generally only wiht the latest novel, which
they wish because it is the latest. And of this 60 to 80 per cent., a
large proportion - probably at least half - prefer to get, and generally do
get, a novel of the cheaper kind.

I am stating the case plainly. I share your enthusiasm; but that
enthusiasm is not seldom to me - and I believe you - a cause for surprise.
Has it not often come sharply home to every one of you - the hopelessness
of the task we assume to set ourselves? the triviality of the great mass of
the free public library's educational work? the discouraging nature of the
field? the pettiness, the awful pettiness of results?

Nor is this all. That we strive for great things and accomplish the
infinitely little; that our output is by no means commensurate with the
size of the plant and the cost of its maintenance, this is by no means the
only fact which may rightly sober our enthusiasm.

Fathers and mothers love their children and look after their happiness.
The more they do this, the more they concern themselves that the human
beings they have brought into the world be self-reliant, self-supporting
people, knowing how to live in harmony with their fellows, and wishing so
to live, the more civilized they are. Parental responsibility is something
the sense of which has never been too acute. That I may rightly scorn and
despise my neighbor is his children are not decent, attractive, civilized;
that my neighbor may rightly consider himself disgraced if his offspring
grew not up in the fear of the admonition of the -- good citizen; these
things are not yet commonly received. The native manners and the education
of the American child are looked upon, not so much as the result of
parentage and home training, as the good gift of God and the public school.

A strong sense of parental responsibility - this is a prime essential in
the growth of true culture - in the increase of social efficiency. And
this feeling of obligation to train properly the souls of one's own
creation; this sense that the parent can win public approval as a parent
only when the result is an additional factor in the public's happiness and
comfort; this rule of living would surely result, if rightly applied, in
careful consideration of the child's education. But what have we done? We
have turned the whole subject of education over to the community. We have
made it depend very largely on the result of an annual counting of noses.
We have let it slip gradually into the hands of those veritable and
inevitable children of government - the politicians. The American parent
is indifferent to the character of the education of his children. The
interposition of the community in what should be his affairs has not only
made him indifferent to those affairs, it has made others indifferent that
he is so. He pays his taxes. If the schools are poor the fault is at the
school-board's door, not his.

I am dwelling long on this point, for it is vital.

The free public library not only relieves the idle and incompetent and
indifferent from the necessity - would he have books - of going to work to
earn them; it not only checks the growth of the tendency of the private
individual to collect a library of his own, adapted to his own needs, and
suiting his own tastes and those of his children, just as the free public
school may lead them to be indifferent to their formal education.
Certainly, fathers and mothers whose children use public libraries seem to
care very little what and how much their children read. They conceal their
solicitude from librarian and assistants, if it exists. Yet, if a
collection of books in a community is a good thing for the community - and
we seem to think it is; and if it is a good thing particularly for the
children of the community - as we seem to think it is, then it is a good
thing, not in itself simply, not as an object of worship, not as an
adequate excuse for the erection of a pleasing mortuary monument on the
public street, but for its effect on young folks' manners and on young
folks' brains. But to produce a maximum effect herein, to produce even a
desireable effect, the right books must be put into the right hand at the
right time. Can any do this rightly save the parents at least co-operate
with them? But the public library is not an institution which the mother
helps to support because she has come to believe in it; because it is her
pleasure, because she can and does keep a watchful eye on its growth and
methods. It is part of the machinery of the state. She confides her
children to its tender mercies in the same spirit with which her forbears
confided in their king! And she does no more.

Furthermore, the essence of government is force. This essence remains
whether the visible form be king or majority. It is open to question - I
put it mildly - whether it is expedient to touch with the "strong hand" the
impulse of a people to train with earnest thought their young, or the
impulse of a people to give light to their fellows. People wish, in the
main, to educate their children. Without this wish a school system, public
or private, would be impossible. This wish is the vital fact; that the
system is public and tax-supported is the secondary fact; the result, not
the cause. People wish also, in the main, to give their fellows and
themselves the opportunity for self-improvement. This wish is the vital
fact at the bottom of the free, compulsorily supported public library. It
is on these vital facts we should keep our eyes and our thoughts, not on
the feature of compulsion. Work, then, for the extension of the public
library from the starting-point of human sympathy, from the universal
desire for an increase of human happiness by an increase of knowledge of
the conditions of human happiness, not from the starting point of law,
compulsion, of enforcing on others our views of their duty.

I have said enough in this line. To the observant eye our libraries are
not altogether halls of learning; they are also haunts of the lazy. They
do not interest parents in their children; perhaps they lead parents to be
indifferent to their children.

But really, you say, all this is not our concern. You have had this
thought -- what is all this to us? -- already and many times in these few
minutes. We find ourselves here; loving the companionship of books;
desirous of extending the joys they can give to our fellows; embarked in
public service, and active -- none are more so; honest -- none are more
so, in our work of making good use of books. Your modern librarian is in
his daily life no disputatious economist, idly wavering, like the fabled
donkey, between the loose hay of a crass individualism and the chopped feed
of a perfectionist socialism. He is a worker. If there are things to be
said which may add to the efficiency of his attempts to help his fellows to
grow happier and wiser, let us hear them; and for this we have come
together.

I have said these things, I am sure you will believe me, not with the wish
to lessen the zeal of one of us in our chosen work. A moment's look at the
case against us cannot anger us -- that were childish; cannot discourage us
-- that were cowardly; it may lead us to look to the joints in our armor;
it should lead us to renew our efforts. If the free public library
movement be not absolutely and altogether a good thing -- and he is a bold
economist who vows that it is -- how urgent is the call to us to make each
our own library the corrective, as far as may be, of the possible harm of
its existence. A collection of books gathered together at the public
expense does not justify itself by the simple fact that it is. If it be
not a live educational institution it were better never established. It is
ourse to justify to the world the literary warehouse. A library is good
only as the librarian makes it so.

Can we do more than we have done to justify our calling? Can we make
ourselves of more importance to the world? -- of more positive value to the
world? Our calling is dignified in our own eyes, it is true; but we are not
greatly dignified in the eyes of our fellows. The public does not ask our
opinions. We are, like the teachers, students; and we strive, like them,
to keep abreast of the times, and to have opinions on vital topics formed
after much reading and some thought. But save on more trivial quesitons,
on questions touching ususally only the recreative side of life, like those
of literature commonly so called, our opinions are not asked for. We are,
to put it bluntly, of very little weight in the community. We are
teachers; and who cares much for what the teacher says? I am not pausing
now to note exceptions. We all know our masters and our exemplars; and I
shall not pause to praise the men and women who have brought us where we
are; who have lifted librarianship, in the estimation of the wise and good,
to a profession, and have made it comparatively an easy thing for you and
me to develop our libraries, if we can and will, into all that they should
be, and to become ourselves, as librarians, men and women of weight and
value in the community. I do not pause to praise them. They understand as
well as I that approval and counsel cannot well come from me to them.

I have said that your library is perhaps injuring your community; that you
are not of any importance among your own people. And these, you tell me,
are hard sayings. In truth they are. I am not here to pass you any
compliments. If for five minutes we can divest ourselves of every last
shred of our trappings of self-satisfaction, and arouse in ourselves for a
moment a keen sense of our sins of omission, of things left undone or not
well done, I shall be content, and shall consider that we have wisely
opened these Cleveland sessions. I would wish to leave you, here at the
very beginning of our discussions, not, indeed, in the Slough of Despond,
but climbing sturdily, and well aware that you are climbing, the Hill of
Difficulty. Others, I can assure you, will, long before our conference
ends, lead us again, and that joyfully, to our Delectable Mountains.

Pardon me, then, while I say over again a few of the things that cannot be
too often said.

Look first to your own personal growth. Get in touch with the world. Let
no one point to you as to an instance of the narrowing effects of too much
of books. Broaden out.

Be social. Impress yourself on your community; in a small way if not in a
large. Be not superior and reserved. Remember that he who to the popular
eye wears much the air of wisdom is never wise.

Coming to your chosen profession: Speak out freely on matters of library
management; and especially, in these days, on matters of library
constructions. In recent years millions of dollars have been spent on
library buildings in this country, and we have not yet a half dozen in the
land that do not disgrace us. If we have stood idly by and not made our
opinions, our knowledge, our experience, felt by trustees and architects,
then is ours the blame, and we are chief among the sufferers. Persuade
architects and their associations, local and national -- who ignore us
because in our inconsequence they know they can -- that they may wisely and
without loss of dignity consult the professional librarian about the
building he is to occupy. I say persuade them; I might better say compel
them. To compel them will be easy when you have become of importance in
the world. Even now it is not too soon to attempt to confer with them.
You can at once make the beginning of friendly and helpful relatoins with
the American Institute of Architects. But you must ask, not demand.

Advertise the A. L. A. and what it stands for. Help to broaden its field.
support heartily measures which look to a greater degree of publicity for
it. Interest your trustees in it. Interest your friends, and your patrons
and constituents in it. Be ready and willing to do your share of the work
-- and there's no end of work -- that each year must be done to keep it
properly alive and well in the public eye. Call the attention of your
trustees to the difference between the efficient library, such as the A. L.
A. advocates and strives for, and the dead-and-alive collection of books,
still altogether too common where the A. L. A. spirit has not yet
penetrated. Consider the contrast between the possible public library and
the public library that is. If the causes for that contrast lie at your
door, face them frankly and bravely, and strive to remove them.

Do not forget the Library Department of the National Educational
Association, recently established. It gives you excuse, and it gives you
cause, to take an interest, more active even that heretofore, in the
introducation of books and library methods into school work, and to concern
yourselves more than ever before with the general reading of teachers and
their pupils. Impress upon teachers the value to them of your library.
Persuade them, if you can, that to do their best work they must know well
and use freely the good books.

See that your local book and news man is heartily with you in the work of
spreading knowledge of the right use of books and in encouraging ownership
of books in your community. If you come in contact with the bookseller and
the publisher of the great cities do what you can to persuade them that to
join in the work of the A. L. A. is not only to benefit the community at
large, but to help their own particular business as well.

Be not slow in giving hearty recognition to those who have, in the
beginnings of library science, taken the first place and borne the burdens
and and made an easy way for us who follow. If, perhaps against some odds,
a librarian, man or woman, is making an eminent success of some great city
library, may you not properly send him, once and again, a word which shall
signify that you, at least, are alive to the fact of this good work and are
yourself encouraged and inspired thereby? Like words of approval you may
well extend to the good men, outside of the profession proper, who have
given their time and energy, a labor of love, to improve certain features
of library work. I need not specify.

Interest in your work in yourown community your local book-lovers and
book-collectors and book-worms and private students and plodders and
burners of the midnight oil. Get in touch with the teachers of literature
in the colleges and schools of your neighborhood. Expound to such, and to
the general reader as well, whenever you properly can, the difficulty and
the possibilities of your calling, your conquests in classification and
cataloging, and your advances in bibliography and indexing, and the
progress in recent years of general library economy. Remember that all
these things can be even better done in the small community, in the village
library of a few hundred volumes, than in the large library of the great
city.

Note the women's clubs, art associations, historical societies, scientific
societies. Do not forget the private schools. In the small town you can
gain without difficulty the good-will of the local newspaper. You can
often assist the editor in his work, and lead him to help you in return.
The clergymen in your town certainly care somewhat for the reading of their
young people, and will co-operate with you in any intelligent effort to
increase it and improve it. The Sunday-school libraries of your
neighborhood are open to your suggestions, if you approach them properly.
And the Y. M. C. and the Y. W. C. associations will gladly take from you
advice and assistance in the management of their reading rooms and
libraries.

None are so poor that they cannot give to others; and few libraries are so
small that they cannot spare books and magazines enough to make a little
library which may be sent out into a still smaller community and there do
good service.

Do the business men and the business women, the active people, those who
feed us and clothe us and transport us, those who have brought about in the
last few decades the great increase in creature comforts for every one, do
these business people take an active interest in your library? Do they
care for you, or for your opinion? If not, is it their fault? is it that
they are gross and dull and material and worldly; or is it that you, the
wise librarian, know not yet how to bring your educational forces to bear
on the life that now is? Our work is but begun so long as we are not in
close touch with the man of affairs.

Remember that as you in your little town, or in your city, widen the sphere
of your influence, grow to be a person of worth and dignity in the
community, you thereby add so much to the dignity and the the effectiveness
of the whole profession. If in a city or town near you there is a library
which, in its general arrangement is not what it should be, which is but a
dusty pile of printed pages or but a roosting-place for a flock of cheap
novels, yours is in part the fault, and you are largely the loser. When a
dweller in that town, one unacquainted with library affairs -- and most are
such -- hears you alluded to as a "librarian," he thinks of you as a person
akin to the bibliothecal pagan who fails to manage the library of his own
town, the only library he knows by which he can measure your work. He is a
"librarian"; you are a "librarian." We wear the livery of our coworkers as
well as our own.

Keep these thoughts in mind and you will see how essential it is, would our
profession reach the standing we wish it to reach, would we make it
everywhere an honor to wear our name, that every smallest library be an
effective educational machine, and that every humblest librarian be an
active, enthusiastic, intelligent worker. Yet some people in charge of
accumulations of books must even now be urged to join the A. L. A.

See that your library is interesting to the people of the community, the
people who own it, the people who maintain it. Deny your people nothing
which the book-shop grants them. Make your library at least as attractive
as the most attractive retain store in the community. Open your eyes to
the cheapness of books at the present day, adn to the unimportance, even to
the small library, of the loss of an occasional volume; and open them also
to the necessity of getting your constituency in actual contact with the
books themselves.

Remember always that taxation is compulsion; that taxation is government;
that government, among present-day human creatures, is politics; that the
end of an institution may not justify its means; that a free public library
may be other than a helpful thing. See to it, therefore, the more
carefully that your own public library at least is rationally administered,
and promotes public helpfulness.

Our patrons have used bobby pins, water bills and toothpicks as book marks.
But the oddest things we've had returned in our books have been food
items---a broken Oreo cookie dropped out of one book, a dried up really
nasty piece of bologna was found in another, and several cooked spaghetti
noodles in another. Needless to say, our rather embarrassed patrons had to
pay for the books.

> Our patrons have used bobby pins, water
> bills and toothpicks as book marks.
> But the oddest things we've had returned
> in our books have been food
> items---a broken Oreo cookie dropped out
> of one book, a dried up really
> nasty piece of bologna was found in another

At my branch we recently had 160.00, in
twenties, come in with a returned book.
Used concert ticket stubs, Diamondbacks
baseball ticket stubs, PowerBall tickets,
etc., are not uncommon.

We get playing cards, baseball cards,
post cards, and, not too long ago, we
found a note written in a florid,
loopy little-girl's hand which
said "Mommy Have You Told Daddy About
the New Baby Yet?"

My wife worked as a page at Phoenix
Public Library while she was going to
college, and she remembers that
bologna and bacon slices came in
on more than one occasion, as did twentydollar
bills.

Of course, I know of some truly gross
things that came back with books . . .
full biohazard suits, anyone?

One time there was a PowerBall ticket
that had not yet been drawn. It didn't
turn out to be a winner. But if it had
won, the ethical situation becomes
interesting. Do you find the original
borrower whose ticket it may be? If
unable to determine that, does the
$170 million go to the library? Does
the circ aide who found it get a cut?
Can we at least have a staff party?

This incident was pre-me, (and also pre- automation), but it is sort of
a legend among the Circulation staff. We had a envelope of pictures
from a family barbeque returned in a stack of books, everyone outdoors
enjoying the nice summer weather -- (not unusual you say) -- everyone
was completely naked in all the pictures.

I would have loved to have been here when the person came in to pick up
the envelope (and they did).

Why, just the other day I found a note from a wife to husband, all about
the state of their sex life (or lack thereof), in a book that I pulled off
the shelf...weeding, I think I was, as I was tired of dull administrative
duties. It was somewhat enlightening, reasonably graphic, and I hope the
couple was, or is, in therapy. Either that, or teaching some classes on
erotic methodology(-gies).

If one lives in rural areas--I hate to pick on TEXAS, though the state
does come to mind--one should be prepared to find various forms of tobacco
returned in books...sprayed on the wall...dripping down book shelves.
Leaves, plugs, dried juice, masticated mementos...mmmm, mmmm, gross. (But
then, right after we'd moved to Palestine, my wife went to have one of the
family cars inspected--seems odd that a state like Texas would require
inspection of vehicles, but there it is--and just as she was about to open
the door of the jiffy-lube-type place that did inspections, a gentleman
[sic] inside opened the door--but not for my wife--and shot a long stream
of tobacco slime in the general direction of anyone approaching the
establishment. BUT...even people in Illinois chew, spit, and dip. As St.
Paul saith, all have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God....)

I'm sure I've found other stuff in books, but memory fades. Perhaps
deliberately.

Of the many unusual "bookmarks" I have seen returned in books, my
favorite would have to be the perfectly pressed marijuana leaf pressed
between the pages of a Philosophy text. I was a page at the college
library at the time and more than a little amused.

I've also found money, tissues (used and unused) straws, candy wrappers,
Twinkies (it was a gooey mess), condoms (still in the wrapper,
thankfully), religious tracts, airplane tickets (we were able to return
them to the great relief of the patrons), invitations (party, wedding,
etc.), bus passes, checks, several drivers licenses and other IDs,
lottery tickets (not the winning numbers), and a snake skin. I imagine
this list will continue to grow as I don't plan on retiring any time
soon.

This is actually a serious suggestion. Check gift books carefully for
contents. Sometimes the old postcards and greeting cards that show up are
worth much more than the books. Nice little "collectibles" for you next
book sale or maybe even an addition to your local history collection.
But you can keep the dead snake.
Anne Gometz
Gastonia, North Carolina
"Mine and mine alone."

My favorite thing found in a returned book was the waistband of a pair
of Jockey shorts. Size 36.

The most cash I ever found used as a bookmark was $80.

We also found a bra in a book in the stacks, which I guess is
technically another topic: Things Found in the Stacks. We were pretty
sure the book wasn't returned with this interesting insert, but it
certainly provoked some speculation about how and when and why it got
there.

Please spread the word in Library Juice about a new MLS program being offered
in conjunction with the Worker Education Program and the Graduate School of
Library and Information Studies at Queens College - City University of New
York.

The Worker Education Program (www.qc.edu/workered) has a twenty-year history
of offering degree opportunities to union members, and for building union
leadership with innovative programs like Labor and Civic Participation for new
union activists interested in electoral politics, Union Semester for full-time
students interested in working in NYC labor unions, Labor Breakfasts for those
interested in interactive monthly forums to discuss the future of labor, New
Labor Forum, a contemporary journal of labor issues, and more.

The Queens College MLS program is one of the most rigorous and affordable in
the city, and had previously only been offered in the outer borough of
Queens. Recently the three local library guilds, the three metropolitan
library systems, and the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
have partnered to make use of the Manhattan Extension Center at 25 West 43rd
Street, an extremely accessible location with classrooms outfitted with the
latest technology. The goal is to increase opportunities for library
employees to attain undergraduate and graduate degrees.

In addition to the MLS program, we also offer a MA in Urban Affairs, and a BA
in either Urban Studies or Labor Studies, as well as a BS in Applied Social
Science. We serve union members working in a wide range of occupations
throughout the city.

Let me know if you have any questions, and if you can assist us in letting
more people know about this rare opportunity.

Fellow library people,
Looking through the new 2004 Slingshot organizer (a calendar produced every
year as a fundraiser by the Slingshot Collective in Berkeley California), I saw
a request for submissions for the collective's project to make a zine of
translations.

They are asking folks to translate the following six phrases, and send the
translations to them along with the name of the language they've been
translated into. I image a pronunciation guide and romanizations (where
appropriate) would be appreciated. You'll see when you look at the list of
phrases that they have some good priorities about the most important phrases to
know:

1. Where is the library?
2. I'm from Candada.
3. The (insert explative) U.S. government is (insert double explative).
4. You're hot, are you queer?
5. Is there someplace in your house that I can hide?
6. Would you like to sleep with me?

The following were search expressions that led web searchers from search
engines (mostly Google) to pages on Libr.org during the month of December:

this information was removed due to government request
glenn rikowski wer ist
wield apples
the cuban blockade, how many people where in the cuban blockade
"68% of people"+"inappropriate"+"men"
michael mcgrorty genius
what happened to the domestic servants in the 20th century
lawsuit Hair today gone tomorrow
"is cannibalism legal?"
capitalism and robots
how do i become rich
sirsi sucks
what does the cuban dollar stand for?

| http://libr.org/Juice/
|
| Library Juice is supported by a voluntary subscription
| fee of $10 per year, variable based on ability and
| desire to pay. You may send a check payable in US funds
| to Rory Litwin, at 1821 'O' St. Apt. 9, Sacramento, CA 95814,
| or, alternatively, you may use PayPal, by going to:
| https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=rlitwin%40earthlink.net
|
| To subscribe, email majordomo[at]libr.org with the message
| "subscribe juice".
|
| To unsubscribe, email majordomo[at]libr.org with the message
| "unsubscribe juice".
|
| Other majordomo commands are available in the help file,
| which you can get by emailing majordomo[at]libr.org with the
| message "help".
|
| Library Juice is a free weekly publication edited and
| published by Rory Litwin. Original senders are credited
| wherever possible; opinions are theirs. If you are the
| author of some email in Library Juice which you want removed
| from the web, please write to me and I will remove it.
|
| Copyright to material in Library Juice should be considered
| to belong to the original authors unless otherwise stated.
| Works by Rory Litwin may be used freely for non-commercial
| purposes with appropriate attribution.
|
| Your comments and suggestions are welcome.
|
| Rory[at]libr.org